SCBU Championships

There was a change of venue for this years Scottish Schools Badminton Union Secondary championships which were held at Ravenscraig Sports Facility rather than the Bells Sports Centre in Perth.

The North East region was once again well represented with 20 athletes taking part from three schools. Chloe Tough, Laura Townsend, Mark Leith, Sean Leith and Jacob Reynolds, all Mackie Academy competed in the intermediate category and Matthew Duguid, Stuart Holley, Jack Murray, David Blacklaw, Sam Muir, Calum Lawrence and Calum Smith, all Mackie Academy completed the North East representation in the junior event.

All events were played to the quarter final stage on the Saturday with the semi-finals and finals contested on the Sunday. The North East players all competed well on the Saturday with many hard fought games.

The intermediate event saw the best success for the North East with four of the seven athletes progressing to finals day. Mark was unfortunate to lose out at the quarter final stage to Jack Stevenson in the singles event but progressed comfortably in the doubles event with brother Sean to the semi final. Sean also progressed to the semi final stages in both the mixed event with Chloe and in the singles event facing school mate, Jacob, in the singles semi final on the Sunday. Jacob and Laura were unlucky to lose out at the quarter final stage in the mixed doubles, but Jacob also progressed comfortably to the semi final of the doubles event partnering Matthew Duguid who played up from the junior section.

Finals day once again produced some fantastic matches. In the boys singles events, Matthew and Sean were both successful in their semi-finals, Matthew winning comfortably over Cameron Law, 21-8, 21-7 in the junior event, but a much closer affair in the intermediate event, Sean successful in his match with Jacob winning by the closest of margins, 22-20, 22-20. There was disappointment in the finals however for both boys, Matthew losing out to Alex Dunn, 21-15, 21-15 and Sean losing out to Jack Stevenson, Glasgow, 20-22, 21-15, 15-21.

In the junior boys doubles event Sam and David put up a good fight but were just not strong enough to topple Glasgow School of Sport pair, Leon Masia and Stewart Dyce. In the intermediate mixed doubles event Sean and Chloe almost caused an upset in a thrilling 3 set match against Glasgow School of Sport duo, Eleanor O’Donnell and Robert Clark, losing 21-16 in the 3rd set, the only pair to take a set off the eventual winners.

In the intermediate boys doubles both Mackie pairs performed well in their respective semi final matches to set up an all Mackie Academy final and a thrilling final it proved to be. The first set was end to end action with very little between the pairs. Sean and Mark had 2 game points in the first game but were unable to convert this to a win as Jacob and Matthew held their resolve to win the first 25-23.

A change of tactics from the Leith brothers seemed to pay off as they managed to take control early in the following two games and held onto their lead winning both, 21-10, 21-11 to take the title, adding this to their junior title they won together 2 years ago.